How to Make a Zebra Cake with Stripes on the Inside {Tutorial}

Once again, I have my friend Kristen to thank for this fun idea!! Kristen is always full of great ideas that inspire me to try new things and I just love her! OH, be sure to like Kristen's Cakery on Facebook to keep up with her creative cakes!

Where was I? OH, right, the zebra cake. So, a few months ago I saw her post a picture of a cake with zebra stripes on the inside and I was super impressed. She told me how she did it and I thought, "One day I'll have to give it a try."

So... when I got an order for the Hot Pink Zebra Cake and the birthday girl wanted zebra stripes on the inside too, I already had a plan!

Start by taking the amount of batter you'll need for your cake and dividing it into two bowls (or if you plan to use chocolate and vanilla - just mix them up as you normally would - in separate bowls of course).

For this order, she wanted the cake to be all "white" cake flavored, so I made up the recipe and put it in two bowls. Than I mixed in some black gel coloring to half the batter.

After you've prepped your pans (this time I only sprayed with Baker's Joy vs. lining with parchment paper), begin by scooping the batter into the pans with a ⅓ cup measuring cup.

Then alternate to the other color.

This works best if your batter is on the runnier side. If you followed the directions on the back of the cake mix box, it would probably be an ideal consistency. My recipe makes a pretty thick batter so I had to bang my pans on the counter after every 2 or 3 scoops to level it out. Keep adding alternating scoops until your pans are ½ to ⅔ full (or you run out of batter).

This is what my pans looked like when I was done (one was for the zebra smash cake, the other was just because I had extra!):

Then bake them for the normal amount of baking time (for these in 6" round pans, I baked at 325° for about 35 minutes). I bake at a lower temp because doing that and wrapping them with towels leads to me having very level cakes straight out of the oven!

Since the Hot Pink Zebra "1" Cake was in the Alphabet Cake Pan, I had to get creative with the zebra batter...

See? I told you I did it backwards in the pan! Anyway, I forgot to take a picture of the cakes baked (before decorated) and obviously I couldn't cut into the "1" to see how it turned out, but I'm thinking it did, since I know the extra 6" cake did!

Here's the finished cake:

You can see more pics and details about the Hot Pink Zebra Stripes Cake and Smash Cake here.

Did I miss anything? Any questions about this cake? Please leave them in the comments and I’m happy to answer & help!